Snape stared into the shadows.
She watching him, he was sure. Unconsciously, his lips framed the question that tugged at the back of his mind.
What are you?
I am dragon.
He wasn't surprised when the shadows resolved themselves into a human form. It was her way of making him doubt what he was seeing – had she always been there, waiting in the wings?
A dragon? She looked nothing like the clumsy, vicious, flying reptiles that the wizarding world kept. And yet there was something draconian about her, the lithe beauty of the promise of a violent death.
Don't you know what a dragon is?
"A dragon is a bloody great flying lizard," he replied, somewhat testily.
Stupid.
"What is it, then?" he challenged, wanting to gain some sort of insight into her mind, half hoping that it might give him some sort of an edge.
Stupider. I am an immortal creature, with thoughts and emotions a mere human could never understand. When the boiling seas cooled, when lava hardened into igneous rock, I was there. When the fourth planet slammed into earth and sent debris hurtling up into space to create the satellite you call the moon, I was there. When the Cambrian explosion brought forth life the likes of which you could never imagine, I was there.
Amber eyes watched him unblinkingly.
In another few millennia, humans will be gone, and the earth will not mark your passing. Your history, your petty wars and self-centered squabbles are of no more consequence than a teardrop is to the ocean. You think you can influence me, when I will outlive you a thousand times over? There is nothing you can offer me that I cannot take.
Always remember that.
She lapsed into silence. Snape didn't pursue the subject. He was caught off guard when she spoke again.
Death is a necessary end.
He looked up, puzzled. "Yes. What of it?"
Then why do you fear it? People try to defeat it, always. They try to bargain with their make-believe gods. There was a city, she added. Altars, carved from stone. They built the entire city out of white marble. Her voice was surprisingly mild. I watched. They built temples and offered sacrifices, all in the hope of a glorious afterlife..
Snape wondered what had happened to them. His grasp of ancient civilizations was weak.
The city slid into the sea. They built their civilization on a fault line, and it shifted. Lava boiled out of the volcanoes, and the earth moved. They cursed and cajoled their gods in the same breath. They begged for mercy, even as they hoped for a better life after death. It made no difference. They died by the thousands, caught between burning and drowning. Ironic, isn't it? They feared death, and at the same time they coveted it, but not all their gods could save them from it.
The city is still there, she added. I go back, sometimes. Once, they ruled a continent... and now sea spiders crawl beneath the altars, and the towers echo with the sounds of whale songs. Now their city is only a marble skeleton of what it once was, and could have been.